Parenting workshops in schools

Bringing schools and parents together improves academic and social success for children, which is why we developed our successful workshops that are endorsed by schools and nurseries. Our workshops cover a variety of topics of interest to all parents and take place within the familiar environment of the school community.

With the skills and strategies learned during the workshops, parents can help children grow in confidence and resilience. We show parents how to get children to cooperate more, to communicate more, to try new things and to persevere – as well as how to do well academically and socially. Parents learn how to support children in academic, artistic and sporting endeavours - without placing undue pressure on the children.

Workshops are 90 minutes with a group size between 20 and 100. See below for our list of workshops. This is not a complete list as we are developing new topics all the time.

After the workshops finish, parents often get in touch with us and we enjoy hearing about different successes in school, new friendships and improvements to family life.

Who attends

Any mum or dad, with children in school, including parents of children with special needs

Workshops for Schools

The Primary Years

Bringing out the best in your children (S1)

Positive discipline, finding the balance (S2)

How to listen so kids will talk (S3)

Friendships (S4)

Staying calm, being positive (S5)

Fostering harmony between siblings (S6)

How to talk so children will listen (S7)

Raising confident children (S8)

Helping children cope with life's knocks (S9)

Developing happy, creative and motivated learners (S10)

Homework: increasing motivation and reducing stress (S11)

Bringing out the best in boys (S12)

Why can't you buy me one? (S13)

Raising Girls - Friendships (S14)

Raising Girls - Perfectionism and Self Esteem (S15)

Connecting with your daughter - the power of words (S16)

Girls - Body Image (S17)

The Emotional Intelligence Edge (S18)

The Teenage Years

Preparing for the teenage years (T1)

Communicating with adolescents (T2)

Boundaries (T3)

Workshops for school teachers

We offer workshops in schools for school teachers. Teachers are dedicated, warm and empathetic professionals and we know how much is required of them when stimulating a class of children to learn.

Teachers need to ensure children absorb the learning tasks required of them and learn how to interact with others. At the same time, teachers need to care for the children and manage behaviour. Teaching staff tell us that they find disciplining school children difficult, so in our workshops we show behaviour management techniques that bring out the best in children while ensuring discipline is positive and effective.

These workshops are developed in conjunction with experienced teachers and the content draws on learnings from child behaviour and child development research.

Who attends

Teaching staff and assistants interested in developing further skills for the classroom

What Parents say

I regard the evening as an unqualified success! We are in the early stages of running such events and we had a good showing and plenty of appreciative comments. It worked well financially too with the school funding half and the other half being raised by ticketing.
We will definitely run another one. Melissa was terrific and the whole event unfolded beautifully!

Vania Adams, Headteacher, The Roche School, Wandsworth

Thank you so very much on behalf of Highgate Pre-Prep for delivering a hugely informative evening for helping to get the best out of one's children. As you know this was our first of this kind and the feedback we have had already has been very enthusiastic. Parents definitely want help/advice and you delivered this in such a professional, humorous and kindly way that the message went down very well. As you realized we follow these principles already so it was super to hear them from another source

Janet Mills SENCO at Highgate Pre Prep school

A topical talk given by the Parent Practice is now an annual fixture in the Hornsby House calendar. Clearly and sensitively presented, the speakers always focus on the real and current concerns facing parents, offering practical tips and an opportunity to reflect on good, and bad (!), practice. The Parent Practice speakers who have visited our school certainly know their subject and have always delivered their presentations in a relaxed and informal style showing great empathy with the audience, which is absolutely essential.

Connecting with your daughter -the power of words (S16)

Girls - Body Image (S17)

Never Ask Twice School Talk

The Emotional Intelligence Edge (S18)

Duration:

It is widely accepted amongst researchers and educators today that a person’s emotional intelligence is at least as important in his success as his cognitive abilities, and in fact will impact on his cognitive abilities. Emotional intelligence affects a child’s future health, wealth, happiness, relationship satisfaction and ability to bounce back from adversity.

This workshop explores what emotional intelligence is - the ability to recognise, to regulate and to express emotions. It is a prerequisite for resilience - the ability to recover from setbacks, to embrace failures as learning opportunities and to try again. It also includes empathy, which is recognising and caring about what others feel, crucial for real communication.

Study after study has found that children with good emotional intelligence are not just better adjusted emotionally, more popular and more sensitive but they are also physically healthier and perform better academically than less emotionally intelligent children. Emotionally intelligent kids deal better with stress and have better mental health.

Emotional intelligence is not an innate talent; it is a skill that can be learnt. In this workshop we will look at how to raise children with good emotional capacities, empathy and resilience. We look at how to encourage self-awareness, self-management and excellent communication skills.